Kierkegaard between estetic and religious. The Movement of Reflection

Abstract

The main focus of this paper is Kierkegaard’s movement of reflection from the earlier to the later stage of his work. I shall designate the movement of reflection as the shift in Kierkegaard’s understanding of his own works due to the difference between the esthetic and the ethic-religious existence. Throughout my paper I assume that Kierkegaard never had a fully developed plan for his entire corpus, and that he merely attempted to find a proper way to communicate with his readers. Even if many scholars agree that his pseudonymous works are mainly philosophical, in his ”edifying authorship” Kierkegaard comes to address the reader in a direct fashion. The explanation of his movement of reflection is explicitly approached in two particular works Concluding Unscientific Postscript and Point of View on My Work as an Author which will be the main focus of my paper.